Real Estate Photography Pricing Guide - Part II
- Getting Started In Drone Photography for Real Estate
- How To Market Yourself as a Real Estate Photographer
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Google “real estate photography pricing guide” for how to set real estate photography prices and you will find a lot of ideas for how to price real estate photography. One seemingly glaring omission for newcomers into real estate photography is the actual dollar amounts.
This is actually a good thing, because there are many variables affecting pricing for real estate photography. A huge variable is the market you’re in, both in regards to actual location and the type or style of real estate photography you will be offering.
Just as the actual home prices will differ from Marin County, California to Jackson County, Missouri, to Glades County, Florida, so will prices for related products and services, photography being one of those services.
Since our previous real estate photography pricing guide already directed you towards doing local market research and calculating your real labor costs, we’ll talk about market positioning and adding on real estate photography packages.
Commercial, Residential, Luxury Residential
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In addition to your area, the actual type of market will have a huge impact on pricing. I separate my real estate photography genres into three types: Residential, Luxury Residential, and Commercial. Each gets priced differently because of the amount of images I’m delivering, the time I spend creating them, and the resources of the potential client.
As a newcomer to real estate photography, I used to wonder if it was proper to vary any of my prices based on what the client could afford and I found out that the answer is Yes. If it’s an average homeowner, they may be searching for price points, while still wanting high quality. Commercial and luxury clients still want value but are willing to pay more for the extras we provide to them.
A home of 1500 to 2500 square feet will generally have fewer rooms than a 4000 or 5000 square foot home, so price accordingly. Additionally, luxury homes (you could also label these residences as upscale) tend to have more specialty rooms, such as a breakfast nook, study, or gameroom, which may require more images of these special features.
A commercial property might have dozens of similar rooms, cookie cutter style, which means you can simply shoot representative rooms or areas. On the other hand, it could have dozens of different specialty floor areas, all of which would require separate imaging.
Basic and Upscale Packages
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Real estate photography packages are an excellent way to create your own real estate photography pricing guide. Packages work well with the three genres of real estate photography detailed above, residential, upscale or luxury residential, and commercial.
It makes good sense to deliver the same high quality in all of your packages, the variations you could make would likely include how many images you deliver, the types of add-on available, and if you want to offer extra processing besides your regular bracket and merge processing.
The bracket and merge technique, also known as high dynamic range or HDR photography, will be useful for any real estate photography packages you offer. It lets you deliver superior images that show detail in the highlights and shadows as well as the midrange portions of each exposure. Here is an excellent YouTube video showing why it should be part of your regular workflow.
Your own real estate photography packages might be priced according to providing a set number of images and then add-on other services or extra images. Common packages often include one for X number of images, one for XX number of images, and one for XX number of images with enhanced processing, and then add-ons. Use this real estate photography tip to develop high-value packages for your clients.
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Beauty Shot Add-On
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Beauty shots are sometimes called hero shots and these are the images that show up as the main photograph of a listing. If it was a printed sales brochure, it would be the cover photo. Each of your packages will have an image used for the cover shot but beauty shot goes a little bit beyond.
An enhanced beauty shot might include some clean up of the image. Such as cloning grass over a small bare spot in the yard or editing the window reflections. Be careful not to enhance it to the point where it’s not a true representation of the property, but it’s okay to pretty it up a bit.
A cover image, hero image, or beauty image is meant to grab a viewer’s eye, the rest of the images show the full extent of what the property has to offer potential buyers.
Drone Photography Add-On
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If you have this capability to offer, make it an add-on that has an extra charge. Drone shots add value to the real estate photography packages in that it shows a view not readily apparent to the prospective buyer. A drone image often makes an excellent beauty shot.
Twilite Images Add-On
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Twilite (twilight) images can be quite pretty and intriguing, adding interest and thus value to the real estate photography package. In order to provide this image, you will need to be there taking the photos during either morning or evening twilight, so be sure to figure that into your pricing.
A twilight image requires bracket and merge image processing to come out properly since you might need to shoot more than usual three HRD images, more likely 5 or 7, to get all the detail and nice coloring. The twilight image also makes for an excellent beauty shot.
How to Price Real Estate Photography
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With this extra information added on to our previous article, you should have a workable real estate photography pricing guide that will work in your area, with your intended clientele, and for the style of real estate photography you’re offering.
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